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Saturday, 17 May 2014

Once
again I find myself writing on the PKR elections. Some 30 cabangs will have to
vote again for the office bearers. That means the race isn’t over yet.

I
have been told of complaints that I don’t have any right to write on PKR
politics. Once more I have to tell my PKR colleagues that I am a political observer.
It’s my business to write on politics. I do because I can. I write on all
issues about politics including matters concerning political parties. PKR is a
member of Pakatan Rakyat- it’s also my interest to see to the well-being of the
party because its health affects the whole of Pakatan Rakyat. but in the end, my
opinions are just that- personal opinions that are debatable. They do not of
course reflect the views of my own political party-DAP.

I
want to write something on my fellow Kuantanite. She is an incumbent vice
president of PKR- Fuziah salleh. Although she comes from Kuantan, I have not
met her before. In fact it was only in 2013 that we come to know each other.

Of
course i know of her when she defeated Fu Ah Kiow, the MCA MP of Kuantan. Many
things were written about Fuziah. Her reputation grew as people speak about
her. When Fuziah beat Fu, she quickly became known as the giant killer.

I
also knew of Fuziah when I was serving as an UMNO ADUN. I often asked my UMNO
friends then, how could they beat Fuziah with her band of dedicated service
workers who go around kampungs and villages seeking out the poor to give them
rice and other food items? While Fuziah and her team of volunteer workers did
that, UMNO people were busy fighting among themselves. You see, it’s easy to beat
UMNO- they are not into giving consistent service to the people. They are busy
knocking off each other to gain leadership positions.

Perhaps
Fuziah Salleh is most famous for her crusade against Lynas- the rare earth
plant in Gebeng Kuantan. As early as 2008, Fuziah started the awareness program
about the damaging effects of the rare earth plant. The initial forum like
grouping evolved into the large movement it is today- a coalition of concerned groups against lynas

Unfortunately
in most political parties what you do as an MP, the work you do on the ground,
the issues you championed outside are largely unappreciated within the party. A
politician must do two things- serve as an elected representative and play
smart politics. The latter is important because if one does not have a
position, one has no application. She or he cannot apply the talent she has
without position. Most of the times, just as in UMNO, visibility and relevance within the party is more important.

I
am surprised that Fuziah as an incumbent is trailing far behind in the race of
PKR vice president. I see her at number nine in the VP race. It’s even more surprising to learn that she is part of the masa depan team formed by the
leading luminaries of PKR such as Tian Chua, Nurulizzah, Rafizi and Saifudin
nasution. Saifudin is last in the race for deputy president implying that he is
there to serve as a spoiler. It’s as though he is placed there to ensure either
Azmin or Khalid Ibrahim cannot win easily. On whose behalf is Saifudin working
for, I do not know. The PKR people should by now know.

Why
is Fuziah trailing behind? She should be among the leaders in the race seeing
that the team masa depan is almost always voted in? The fact that she is
trailing suggest that most of the times, Fuziah’s name has been dropped off
from the list or ‘cai’ as it’s called in PKR lingo. I just found out, the word
cai is taken from the piece of paper, touts sell to 4D players on the eve of official
results. As you drive along, you see people holding out pieces of paper to passers-by.
So, Fuziah is dropped off from the cai of the team masa depan. Likewise delegates are given cais containing the names of people the author the cais want voted in.

I
asked PKR friends what kind of leader does Fuziah thinks PKR need? The answer
given by her should reveal where here priorities are- either to advance party interests
or personal standing.

I
heard her say- PKR needs a leader who is a nice fellow like Mustafa Kamal Ayub,
has a world view like Zaid Ibrahim and charisma like Anwar Ibrahim. These are
the 3 qualities that are needed in PKR leadership. And she is working towards
forming this kind of leadership for PKR.

I
am not saying that this description is correct- but I am willing to say that
Fuziah has the interest of the party close to her heart. PKR needs that kind of
leadership not only for itself but for Pakatan Rakyat.

I
sense that Fuziah is important to PKR because she can be the voice of
conscience for her party. The fact that she is often dropped from the ‘cai’ of
the team masa depan, can only mean that her ideas on party politics, on leadership
and the goings on in the party are at odds with the team. She is willing to protect the conscience of the party. This can only mean,
Fuziah’s vision of the party is not confined to team forming for the purpose of
winning party elections. Instead it can only suggest that a team Fuziah
supports must have the strategic and long term interest of the party as the
overriding interest.

Now,
30 or so cabangs or divisions have to take a re-vote the PKR office bearers. I am
hoping that delegates will look at Fuziah Salleh and realised they will need a
voice of conscience to temper and moderate the PKR leadership. The delegates
will also have the opportunity to correct the wrong on Fuzziah being dropped
from the ‘cai’ she was originally part of.

I just got on line and saw that Dyana was the DAP's candidate for Teluk Intan.The DAP made a very good choice as this young lady had a very good chance to better the winning majority of the previous MP.

I would not be surprised if the Gerakan candidate fared more badly than in his previous loss a year ago.It is a no brainer that when a candidate had two previous straight losses the percentages of having a third loss shoots up to 99.99%.

The Umno/BN will come into the Teluk Intan by election with all the top leaders and firepower they have.In by elections the Umno/BN candidate will be a formidable opponent as he will have all the gomen machinery behind him.And my eagle friends flying over Cameron Highlands told me that the BN have ordered truckloads of carrots and soon will be on their way to Teluk Intan.

Dyana is a better candidate for the DAP this time around instead of the veteran boxer Hew Kuan Yau.Although she is Kit Siang's protege,she will be more acceptable to the local warlords,the Nga cousins.Dyana is seen more neutral and they will have no excuses not to give their all out support to her.

This will help to maintain the previous winning majority won in 2013.Dyana will have no problem in winning the new young voters and many of the fence sitters,many of them Malays.This will help to increase her winning majority.

My money will be on this young lady even if she goes to the post as 1/10 favorite.

Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.

The destiny of this nation today? Going down to the precipice because good character has been suppressed so that bad habits get entrenched from corrupt and indefensible acts of tyranny and prejudice. The political character today? Conscience-less.

Conscience is central to political character.

These days it is the most crucial thing to have. Whether political leader or plain citizen, we will fall - or we can rise again - if we but take one simple step to remember what it was to have a conscience. It is already inside us.

Does Mahathir or Najib have a conscience? Do those in Perkasa or Isma have a conscience? Why continue to bogey those nons already born here for many generations?

Everyone is already dead tired of the charades of Umno and the mahathirites. None of their arguments or causes holds up to scrutiny. In the final analysis they're just in it for themselves. They have no conscience.

Do not let the young suffer just because one wants to play politics. Bring back conscience instead. Do not let history say our Malays are ultimately racial because so long as they get cheated by those of their own race they will quietly accept it.

The future of this nation belongs to people like Fuziah and Dyana. People with conscience and intelligence. Give them fullest support to save Malaysia, to galvanize one and all in a massive wave to revive what has always been in each of us.

At the end of the day, it's not about which party or flag or what race or faith. It's just about who where doing what when. For why is already answered when a leader has conscience. And when you think about it, the practice of any faith also depends on conscience.

Since my town is Teluk Anson (Intan), may the folks there give Dyana the big win she deserves - and bring us all another step closer to a younger and healthier destiny for this country.

When we thought that the Kajang circus and Ahmad Said circus have left town,another brand name cirsus has return.Nothing weirder than this.Raja Bomoh became one of the first BN supporters club big guns to endorsed and blessed Gerakan president Mah Siew Keong,the parliamentary candidate for the Teluk Intan by election.

What next.Raja Bomoh with his two coconuts and his magic wand and his sampan too? How about his flying magic carpet?

Just wondering if 'cai' should have been 'cai tan' or menu as found in restaurants. I have come across this in MCA and even DAP elections where certain teams were competing with each other and wish that to be known to member voters so that they can vote in a team instead of individuals who might not get along. I am sure there are pros and cons in the use of such menus. Personally, I find this method can make certain voters difficult in deciding who to vote for as his wish might not coincide with the list.

I find the numbers used in PKR elections very confusing, looking more like a calendar!

Walla "conscience and conscience-less" ties so beautifully with what you wrote on 16 June 2012,"What with money, so too with position. A position should not be squandered. It may be given but what is given in advance of work to be done has to be earned through deeds for the welfare of others.”

Men with conscience, given a position in advance of work to be done would, irrespective of religious background or for that matter of avowedly atheistic persuasion, would take it as a given, that communion and fellowship is served and fulfilled if and only if the common good is manifested by real deeds.

For as long as the position given is in a highly localised community, say in a small village community, a bad character without conscience can only cause a precipituous situation to befall that community, and no more. But, a conscience-less operating system defining the politicial psyche of the whole community at national level is a recipe for perdition and disaster.

And how do we identify patterns of thoughts and actions of conscience-less people? By the ease with which the elites accumulate wealth, the ostentatious life-styles of the nouveaux riches, threats uttered by politicians from the government side against the Opposition, escalating levels of corruption and apparent impotence of uniformed services to quell rising crimes in the country and to take action against groups like PERKASA and ISMA for highly provocative, if not seditious threats, to name just a few.

Brace for MORE as we “(go) down to the precipice because good character has been suppressed so that bad habits get entrenched from corrupt and indefensible acts of tyranny and prejudice ”, and also because we have committed Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Seven Deadly Sins In Today’s World’:Wealth without work Enjoyment without conscience Knowledge without character Business without morality Science without humanity Religion without sacrifice and Politics without principles.

Now I know why Woody Allen said, "I think crime pays. The hours are good, you travel a lot."

Walla "conscience and conscience-less" ties so beautifully with what you wrote on 16 June 2012,"What with money, so too with position. A position should not be squandered. It may be given but what is given in advance of work to be done has to be earned through deeds for the welfare of others.”

Men with conscience, given a position in advance of work to be done would, irrespective of religious background or for that matter of avowedly atheistic persuasion, would take it as a given, that communion and fellowship is served and fulfilled if and only if the common good is manifested by real deeds.

For as long as the position given is in a highly localised community, say in a small village community, a bad character without conscience can only cause a precipituous situation to befall that community, and no more. But, a conscience-less operating system defining the politicial psyche of the whole community at national level is a recipe for perdition and disaster.

And how do we identify patterns of thoughts and actions of conscience-less people? By the ease with which the elites accumulate wealth, the ostentatious life-styles of the nouveaux riches, threats uttered by politicians from the government side against the Opposition, escalating levels of corruption and apparent impotence of uniformed services to quell rising crimes in the country and to take action against groups like PERKASA and ISMA for highly provocative, if not seditious threats, to name just a few.

Brace for MORE as we “(go) down to the precipice because good character has been suppressed so that bad habits get entrenched from corrupt and indefensible acts of tyranny and prejudice ”, and also because we have committed Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Seven Deadly Sins In Today’s World’:Wealth without workEnjoyment without conscienceKnowledge without characterBusiness without moralityScience without humanityReligion without sacrifice and Politics without principles.

Now I know why Woody Allen said, "I think crime pays. The hours are good, you travel a lot."

I hasten to add that Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Seven Deadly Sins In Today’s World’ was taken from Hans Küng's A Global Ethic for Global Politics and Economics, pg 161.

"Ethics — a challenge for managers"

"There are more managers than is generally assumed who are the opposite of hardliners, thinking only of profit and shareholder value. There are managers who attempt, rather, to live out a high ethic, even in the harsh reality of business. ONE of them ALWAYS carries around an already yellowed slip of paper with the ADMONITION of Mahatma Gandhi:..."

The paragraph above, for our purpose today, could well have been titled "CONSCIENCE — a challenge for ALL citizens"

And the very first person who should carry Mahatma's admonition (not around the neck, please) is, by the law of natural selection and accession, the Prime Minister, being PRIMUS INTER PARES — the FIRST among EQUALS — and more poetically and slightly bastardised, "not that we hold you to be the EQUAL of GOD but the FIRST of MEN" (from The Theban Plays; ignore the salacious history of blood ties, titles and inheritance).

BOTH elected and un-elected lawmakers should then follow suit, and by GOD, put into actual practice to justify the money flowing into the back account(s) month's end.

Admittedly, this will not be easy for those who have been making things easy for themselves all along, for this implicitly requires the use of the most difficult of the THREE 'H's', at the top of the hierarchy of three 'civilisational skills', i.e. the HEART. I wrote about this two years ago in this blog, the three H's start with the HAND, then the HEAD and finally, the HEART. First we acquire basic motor skills with the HANDS from young, then we progress to acquisition of knowledge by using the HEAD and finally striving to use the HEART as the underlying rationale for our BEING and CONSCIOUSNESS to navigate through the immensely complex and challenging dynamics of a society in flux, as we jostled and push each other in our common journey to the grave.

Educational psychologists like to label the three levels as moving from MOTOR to COGNITIVE then to AFFECTIVE skills. However it is acquired, it is the last, the AFFECTIVE i.e. using the HEART that must necessarily trigger the initial process towards realising WALLA's "deeds for the welfare of others". The process moves, now in reverse order, to the HEAD to create that specific consciousness Walla labels as "CONSCIENCE"; the HANDS finally take over to complete the DEED.

It is CONSCIENCE or the lack of it that ultimately, in my view, now separates our leaders from those in the West and Japan, and increasingly those in South Korea, India and Singapore.

If I remember correctly it was Ralph Nader who said something like, " The function of leadership is to produce more leaders not more followers."

Query: What is Najib's definition of leadership?

I know and feel my time is near, as Lucretius has put it both joylessly and truthfully, Vitaque mancipio nulli datur, omnibus usu: TO NONE IS LIFE IN FREEHOLD; TO ALL ON LEASE.

But for now, here's from a sentimental old talking head 'yang bermata sepet' to PM Najib:

“I am the inferior of any man whose rights I trample under foot. Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain.” - Robert G. Ingersoll,

We need more leaders like Fuziah Salleh. Where were you when she began to fight the big boys for the sake of our citizens against the desecration of our country, and I am talking about Lynas! Fuziah is a born leader, and PKR sorely needs good leaders, not sycophants or yes-men. Otherwise, PKR better be careful, in the next general election, the people who supported leaders like Fuziah will have gone away and PKR will be an empty shell. To those who are now re-voting again, DO THE RIGHT THING ! A vote for Fuziah is a vote for you!